CIA's Influence on the Hippie Movement

The CIA created the hippie movement, and your mom's favorite band probably

helped them. In the 1950s, the CIA bought up the world's supply of

LSD. They brought it to the pharmaceutical

company Eli Lilly, who

reverse engineered it, giving them an unlimited supply

and a complete

monopoly. Then the testing started.

One early volunteer for these tests was Ken Kesey.

Kesey wrote a book inspired by this experience, which became a bestseller.

Then Kesey went on to host events, which he called acid tests.

And he wasn't charging anyone, he just wanted people to show up

and do acid.

For these events, he hired an unknown house band called The

Grateful Dead.

These events became wildly popular, and with them rose the popularity of the

band. So The Grateful Dead begins touring, and Kesey follows them around in a

bus from show to show, and everywhere he went,

he brought a vat full of Kool-Aid

laced with LSD. This guy had a seemingly endless supply,

exporting the

hippie culture all around the US. Meanwhile, the CIA is flooding

college campuses with LSD under the guise of research, and The Grateful Dead was

just one of many bands in this movement.

At the same time, in Laurel Canyon came a wave of musicians

with something in

common. They were all children of high-ranking

military officials.

The biggest names in music, Jim Morrison of The Doors

was the son of an admiral.

Frank Zappa's father was a chemical warfare specialist.

Even Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Yeah, all three of them, and all of these

bands as well. The theory is the CIA orchestrated the hippie

movement

to steer a very real anti-war movement into something a little easier to

combat, dissent without teeth. The hippie slogan was literally...

Turn on,

tune in,

and drop out

In other words, do acid and remove yourself from society.

And a lot of them did drop out of society to go live in communes in the woods.

This intersection between hippie culture and the CIA could all be a great big

coincidence. Maybe military brats naturally want to

rebel,

and maybe the CIA was giving away acid because they're chill

like that.

Or maybe